Adam Stiles

Ever wonder how old Google Local's satellite pictures are?

The new zoom levels that Google announced yesterday make it even easier to tell. One method is to look at local football stadiums and see how the fields are decorated.

I checked the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, site of this years BCS national championship, and found the field decorated for a USC-Michigan game. That game was probably the Rose Bowl played January 1, 2004, when USC beat Michigan 28-14 to claim a share of the national championship. So - these images are about two years old.

The imagery of Dolphins Stadium, where the Orange Bowl is played, was fuzzier because the new zoom levels aren't available for that location yet. However, It looks like Iowa versus USC, a game played January 2nd, 2003 (three years ago). USC won that one too - 38-17

I checked the other BCS bowls too... but the Georgia Dome is covered so I couldn't see anything and the Fiesta Bowl wasn't decorated at all.

Anyone else?

Tags: google, maps, satellite

Update: Fixed name of stadium where Orange Bowl is played.

Goal 1: Complete the Big Sur International Marathon on April 30, 2006 in Under 5 Hours

My main goal when I ran the Long Beach marathon in October 2005 was to complete my training program and finish the race injury-free. A minor goal was to break 5 hours for the race. I achieved the first goal but was well off my time goal which suprised me, given my times for 20 and 22 mile training runs. This year, I'm planning to run the Big Sur marathon with my brother and my dad and my goal is to break five hours.

Big Sur is a much tougher marathon than Long Beach (big hills!) so I'm making a bunch of changes to my training program to set myself up for success. For Long Beach I modified a low-mileage Jeff Galloway training program which consisted of two thirty-minute runs a week and one long race-pace run (between 6 and 22 miles). For Big Sur, I'm lengthening my shorter runs to 40-50 minutes and will keep a similar schedule for longer runs. The Galloway plan has three weeks between the longest runs but that felt too long to me so I'm shortening the interval to two weeks. I'm also planning on higher quality off-week long runs of 10-12 miles. For Long Beach, I substituted several of the off-week long runs for triathlon training bricks (bike/runs) and I think the skipped runs hurt me. Finally, I will be doing lots more hills in preparation for Hurricane Point.

Besides my training changes, another place I plan to pick up some time is by weighing less for the race. That brings me to my next goal.

Goal 2: Weight 205 or Less Pounds on April 30th and December 31st

I ran Long Beach while weighing about 220 pounds but I'm sure the race would have been easier without the extra pounds I'm carrying. Dropping 15 pounds (and keeping it off through the year) should make running easier on my body and make me faster too. I plan to lose the weight through better food choices and increased exercise. Achieving my third goal should should help me reach this one too.

Goal 3: Row 1,000,000 Meters in 2006

Nancy and I have been looking to add a low/no impact aerobic exercise to our routine that would be super-convenient and provide an upper body workout too. I'd love to swim again but that isn't convenient enough for our busy life at this point. Rowing has turned out to be the perfect option so Nancy and I got ourselves a Concept2 rower for Christmas. I've been rowing three times a week for two weeks and am starting to love the rhythm. Indoor rowing is suprisingly addictive. There are even competitions if I'm every so inclined. You can't beat the convenience either - just head out to the garage. I row about 6100 meters in 30 minutes at this point. To row a million meters in 2006, I need to row three times a week and average 6400 meters. I'm on track at this point

While watching the 24 season 4 on DVD tonight I noticed Jack Bauer coding in Delphi. Check out the screenshot I captured using PowerDVD on my laptop at about 6:54 PM, 24 time. Jack writes a couple of lines of code just before determining that an EMP is about to go off in the building.

Delphi developers... the next time someone asks why you use Delphi instead of something else, tell them "if its good enough for Jack Bauer, its good enough for me".

Knowing that Bill Gates is a big fan of 24 (a New Yorker article?), I'm surprised that Microsoft's marketing group didn't pay a Visual Studio product placement.

Tags: delphi, programming

Looks like Google recruits developers who search for archane technical terms. WTL is a Microsoft framework for developing super-lightweight COM-based Windows components. WTL is notoriously under-documented. CAxDialogImpl is a WTL class that implements a dialog box. What do you get if you search Google for CAxDialogImpl? A work-at-Google ad.

Tags: google

I was missing the day God handed out directional sense. I regularly lose my car in large parking lots and have to visit a place about ten times before I can find it again without a map. That's why I'm excited about this Gmail feature I noticed today. A friend sent me an email inviting me to a meeting next week. The email text included our agenda as well as the address of the place we're meeting (I've been there before but don't remember how to get there). Gmail was smart enough to parse the address out of the email text and ask me if I wanted to map it. That's a lifesaving feature for directionally challenged people like me. Now if Gmail could help me find my car after the meeting...

Tags: gmail, maps

Gmail's 1337 spam blocker has been working overtime for me.

In case my mom reads this (from Urban Dictionary):

Pronounced "Leet", short for "Elite". The original phrase was 31337, or "Elite", referring to the best hackers. It is still used today by some of the good hackers, but the word has been picked up and overused by so many losers and posers that its meaning has been corrupted.

Tags: gmail, spam, 1337

Get ready to laugh out loud - here's Yoda dancing.

That voice, hard on my throat it is.

Here's a great post at Creating Passionate Users on killing the television, keeping the shows. Kathy writes about being "off tv" for more than 5 years. Being "off tv" means not watching live TV shows, but still watching DVDs or Tivo'd stuff. She's got some great stuff about addiction patterns and the effect of the watch-lots-of-live-tv lifestyle on your brain.

Nancy and I killed our satellite TV subscription a couple of months ago. We have a Blockbuster Online subscription (works like Netflix) so we can rent DVDs by mail and use coupons at our local store too. We haven't tried to tune in local channels. I'm surprised at how easy the transition was. I thought I'd miss the weekly dramas/reality TV shows like Lost, Survivor, The Amazing Race, etc. The kids missed not having the Disney Channel, but only for a few days. But really, its been a very easy, and the monthly savings is nice too. Our evenings are freer - or will be after soccer season is over. The only time I've really missed TV is during a couple of recent UCLA football games. Tracking last minute, come-from-behind-victories via ESPN Gamecast just isn't the same. I'll definitely find a place to watch UCLA-USC this year.

Apply the try-before-you-buy algorithm to this. Turn off your tv for two weeks and see how it goes. You might be surprised.

I finished the Long Beach Marathon yesterday! It was a long day, and my final time was quite a bit slower than I had project based on my long training runs (18, 20, and 22, etc) but the important thing is that I finished.

This marks the end of a long journey for me. Eight years ago I started training to run a marathon with my dad (many time finisher at Big Sur International) but I developed achilles tendinitis once I reached 13 mile training runs. The best way to heal AT is to rest, so I put those plans on hold to try again later. I'm not sure how many times I've started this process (probably 5 or 6), but I've had to put off my plans many times. Four years ago I completed the Long Beach HALF marathon but still wasn't able to progress beyond that distance.

This time I planned out a 6 month training program and was able to stick to it the whole way. After a number of "failures", I feel very blessed to have accomplished this goal. really good shoes helped.  Along the way I listened to countless hours of podcasts, sermons, speeches, and music on my iPod mini, and it helped to carry me through the race as well.

A few race memories: a half a Hooah bar at mile 10 tasted great and provided much-needed boost; a Team-in-Training coach named Jimmy who was very encouraging, even though I wasn't part of his program; a thunder and lightning storm that cleared in time for the race to start; and the best one - finishing the race with my parents and family cheering me on. And thanks to my sweet wife Nancy for supporting me along the way, and to all the volunteers who made the race possible!

Now I need a new goal...